Find it Fast

Developer Resources

DataONE welcomes contributions and collaborations with all who are interested in helping the goals of meeting the needs of science and society for open, persistent, robust, and secure access to well-described and easily discovered Earth observational data. This page describes resources that are available to those interested in learning more about the cyberinfrastructure for DataONE, particularly for contributing to DataONE or using the products that DataONE has developed in other efforts. DataONE code is generally available under an Apache 2.0 license and our code repository is public readable. In general, our intent is that the DataONE's products are as available for reuse and extension as possible.

Architecture Documentation

DataONE has extensive publicly readable documentation. The current version of the Architecture Documentation itself can be found here. Note that these documents are subject to ongoing revision. Please consider getting a DataONE account, subscribing to the Developer e-mail List, or discussing with project members before investing effort in implementing services or other activities dependent on information contained in these documents. If you are interested in contributing directly to DataONE activities, please do get an account, contact the developer community so that we can get you connected up into the Ticketing System, which is used for planning, to ensure that your efforts are put to the most effective use.

Code Repository

The source code for the DataONE products and much of the documentation around these efforts is contained in a publicly readable Subversion repository, found here. As with most open source projects, we need to get to know each other before granting commit access to the repository.

Getting a DataONE Account

DataONE developer resources are all accessed through a common account infrastructure. You can sign up for an account here. In and of itself, that account won't get you commit access to the repository, but it is the first step to getting signed up for the developer e-mail list and/or other DataONE mailing lists.

Note that a DataONE account is not needed for getting data through DataONE. Where a login is needed to get data (many data sets can be downloaded without any logins), that is done using CILogon, which is a service based on the InCommon identity federation. See the CILogon.org and InCommon.org websites for more information or read Roadmap for Using NSF Cyberinfrastructure with InCommon for further information. In many cases, you will be able to use your username and password for you home institution to get data through DataONE.

Developer FAQ

We are in the process of developing FAQ lists, including ones targeted at developers. More information will be available here later.

Contacting Developers

The developer community within DataONE is very interested in hearing from people interested in using the DataONE tools in other project or in helping to develop the DataONE infrastructure. We can very much use help in developing software, testing the tools, writing documentation, and in adapting existing tools to work with DataONE as part of the investigator toolkit.

Developer e-mail List The developers[at]dataone[dot]org email list is a moderated list with general discussion on ongoing topics related to current development. It may take a while for your email to be sent, as posts from non-subscribed email addresses may be moderated.

Ticketing System DataONE has a Redmine implementation which we use to plan out our development and track issues internally. As we move into the public release of the DataONE infrastructure, we will make available additional tools for public-facing tracking of issues.

Developer Workshops From time to time, workshops will be offered, particularly for those interested in implementing a DataONE Member Node. Send a note to the developer e-mail list if you are interested in participating (or even hosting) such a workshop.

Summer Internships

DataONE has run a summer internship program for current undergraduate and graduate students for the past several summers, and we anticipate doing so in the future. Applications are typically accepted starting in February. If you are a student interested in such an internship, you're welcome to get familiar with the project to be in a better position to win an internship slot. Contact DataONE for more information and/or check back to the DataONE internships page in February.

License and Terms of Contributions

DataONE has a general principle of ensuring that the software tools we develop are as open for reuse as possible. Our infrastructure is built on top of many open source tools, and we will continue to support that movement as a means of advancing science.

Given that DataONE is not currently a legal entity in it's own right, but is operated under a cooperative agreement between the US National Science Foundation and the University of New Mexico, we do not currently have a formal contributor agreement. If you have questions about the specific terms and rights and terms for contributions you might make, please get in contact with the DataONE office through the Contact Page.

DataONE is a collaboration among many partner organizations, and is funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) under a Cooperative Agreement. Acknowledgement: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers 0830944 and 1430508. Disclaimer: Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.